The German Revolution

Contrary to Bolshevik expectations, the Russian Revolution remained a
national revolution. Its international repercussions involved no more than a
growing demand for the ending of the war. The Bolsheviks’ call for an immediate
peace without annexations and reparations found a positive response among the
soldiers and workers in the Western nations. But even so, and apart from
short-lived mutinies in the French and British armed forces and a series of mass
strikes in the Central European countries, it took another year before the
military defeat of the German and Austrian armies and general war weariness led
to the revolutionary upheavals that brought the war to a close.

The here decisive German Revolution of 1918 was a spontaneous political
upheaval, initiated within the armed forces but embracing at once, either
actively or passively, the majority of the population, to bring the war and
therewith the monarchical regime to an end. It was not seriously opposed by
either the bourgeoisie or the military, especially as it allowed them to place
the onus of defeat upon the revolution. What was important was to prevent the
political revolution from turning into a social revolution and to emerge from
the war with the capitalist system intact.

At this time, neither the bourgeoisie nor the workers were able to
differentiate between Marxism and Bolshevism, except in the political terms of
democracy and dictatorship. Notwithstanding the military dictatorship in
capitalist countries, it was the dictatorial nature of Bolshevism that the
Social Democratic leadership used in order to defend the capitalist system in
the name of democracy. Long before the November Revolution, the Social
Democratic Party had been the spearhead in the struggle against Bolshevism,
directly and indirectly opposing all working-class actions that might impair the
war effort or break up the class collaboration on which its continuation
depended. But all these efforts failed to prevent the revolution from
overthrowing the old state and its war machine. So as not to lose all influence
upon the unfolding political events, the Social Democrats were compelled to take
part in them and to try to gain control of the revolutionary movement. To that
end, the Social Democratic Party recognized the overthrow of the old regime and
accepted the workers’ and soldiers’ councils as a provisional social
institution, which was to lead to the formation of a republican democratic state
in which Social Democracy could continue to operate as of old.

The collapse of the German Army in the autumn of 1918 had led to some
constitutional and parliamentary reforms and the bringing of Social Democrats
into the government as a measure to liquidate the war with the fewest internal
troubles and, perhaps, to gain better armistice conditions. While the workers’
and soldiers’ councils in Russia were already beginning to lose their
independent powers to the emerging Bolshevik state apparatus, they still
inspired the spontaneous formation of similar organizations in the German
revolution and, to a lesser extent, the social upheavals in England, France,
Italy, and Hungary. In Germany, it was not the lack of effective labor
organizations but their class-collaborationist character and their social
patriotism that induced the orkers to emulate the Russian example. Opposition to
the continuation of the war, and preparations for the revolutionary overthrow of
the existing systems had to be clandestinely organized, outside the official
labor movement, at the places of work, linked with each other by means of
committees of action. But before these planned organizations could enter the
revolutionary fray, the spontaneously formed workers’ and soldiers’ councils had
already put an end to the government by establishing their own political
dominance.

The Social Democratic Party found itself forced to enter the council
movement, if only to dampen its possible revolutionary aspirations. This was not
too difficult, since the workers’ and soldiers’ councils were composed not only
of radical socialists, but also of right-wing socialists, trade unionists,
pacifists, nonpoliticals, and even bourgeois elements. The radicals’ slogan of
the day, “All power to the workers’ and soldiers’ councils,” was therefore
self-defeating, unless, of course, events should take such a turn as to alter
the character and the composition of the councils. However, the great mass of
the socialist workers mistook the political for a social revolution. The
ideology and organizational strength of Social Democracy had left its mark; the
socialization of production, if considered at all, was seen as a governmental
concern, not as the task of the workers. “All power to the workers’ councils”
implied the dictatorship of the proletariat, for it would leave the nonworking
layers of society without political representation. Democracy was still
understood, however, as the general franchise. The mass of the workers demanded
both workers’ councils and a National Assembly. They got both – the councils as a
meaningless part of the Weimar Constitution, and a parliamentary regime securing
the continued existence of the capitalist system.

Whatever the differences between Bolshevism and Social Democracy, as
political parties both thought themselves entitled to lead the working class and
to determine its activities. Both asssumed that if was the party through which
the working class became aware of its class interests and was thus enabled to
act upon them. While the Social Democratic Party was content with the control of
working-class movements within bourgeois society, the Bolsheviks demanded the
exclusive right to this control through the party state. But both these branches
of Social Democracy saw themselves as the legitimate and indispensable
representatives of the working class. A system of workers’ and soldiers’
councils, and new social institutions derived therefrom, was incomprehensible
within the party concepts that had ruled the political labor movement prior to
the revolution. And because opposition to capitalism had hitherto found its
expression in the socialist parties, it is not surprising that they should have
come to play a special and, as it turned out, the decisive role in the
formulation of policy objectives for the emerging council movement.

In Russia too, as we have seen, the competition between the various socialist
organizations within the soviets for control of the revolutionary movement
excluded from the very beginning self-rule of the soviets, which, in fact,
proclaimed as their political goal a democratic constitution and economic
reforms compatible with the capitalist system. The Bolshevik coup d’état changed
this situation by basing the rule of the party on the soviets, in which it had
gained a majority, even though this majority was as accidental as that of 1903,
which gave to Lenin’s faction within Russian Social Democracy the name
“Bolshevik.” This situation repeated itself in 1917 with the protesting
departure of the right-wing socialists and Social Revolutionaries from the
Second Congress of Soviets. The Bolshevik government emerged from the congress
as the self-appointed “Soviet of Peoples’ Commissars,” although the congress
went through the formality of ratifying the new government.

Similarly, at the German First Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils,
the Social Democratic leaders were able to appoint themselves to governmental
positions because they controlled the voting majority of the hastily gathered
delegates, mainly functionaries of the two socialist parties, the Majority
Socialists and the Independent Socialists. This majority was retained also at
the Second Congress of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Councils and assured that the
political program adopted was that of the Social Democratic parties. The
self-liquidation of the councils in favor of the National Assembly was a
foregone conclusion, because of the continued hold of these parties on their
members and their unbroken influence upon the unorganized mass of the working
population. The revolution, insofar as it had a clear-cut political character,
was thus a social democratic revolution, with an emphasis on democracy and a
total neglect of the socialist aspect of the Social Democratic movement.

While in both Russia and Germany the workers’ and soldiers’ councils had been
instrumental in making the revolution, they were unable to turn themselves into
a means for the reorganization of the social production relations and thus left
the reordering of society to the traditional labor movement. As far as Western
Europe was concerned, this movement had long ceased to be a revolutionary
movement, but it had not ceased to express specific class interests and their
defense within bourgeois society. The socialist parties were still workers’
organizations, despite their inconsistencies in class struggle situations and
their violations of the socialist principles of the past. As institutions making
their way within capitalism, their leaders and bureaucracies were no longer
interested even in the programmatic “long-term” democratic transformation of
capitalism, but concentrated upon the “short-term” enjoyments of their
particular privileges within the status quo. Behind their effusive celebration
of democracy as the “road to socialism” there stood no more than the desire to
be fully integrated into the capitalist system, a desire shared by the
bourgeoisie, which also favors social harmony.

It was then only to be expected that the class collaboration exercised
throughout the war should be continued within and after the revolution. This was
understood not only by the bourgeoisie but also by the military authorities, who
accepted and supported the new “revolutionary government” even though its
legitimation was still based on the workers’ and soldiers’ councils, seen as an
unavoidable interregnum between the pre and a postrevolutionary capitalist
government. In order to proceed to the latter, the whole existing state
apparatus was left undisturbed by the “socialist government” and continued to
function in its usual ways. All that the revolution was supposed to accomplish
was a change from the as yet imperfect to a more perfect bourgeois parliamentary
regime, or the completion of the bourgeois revolution, so long delayed by the
persistence of feudalistic elements within the rising capitalism. This was the
immediate and only goal of German Social Democracy. Its reluctance to extend the
revolution into the economic sphere was even more pronounced in the trade-union
leadership, which set itself in opposition “to any socialist experiment and any
form of socialization at a time when the population required work and food.”
The close wartime cooperation between the trade unions and private industry was
reinforced, in order to prevent and to break strikes and to combat the
politicization of the workers via the factory councils in largescale
enterprises. In brief, the old labor movement in its entirety became an
unabashed counter-revolutionary force within a revolution that had played
political power into its hands.

Insofar as the November Revolution was a genuine revolutionary movement, it
found its inspiration in the Bolshevik Revolution, seen as the usurpation of
power by the soviets, and was therefore opposed to the convocation of a National
Assembly and the restoration of bourgeois democracy. It stood thus in opposition
both to the prerevolutionary labor movement and to the spontaneously formed
workers’ and soldiers’ councils, which had made the Social Democratic policies
their own. There was, however, the possibility that this immediately given
situation might change, not only because of the generally unsettled conditions,
but also because of the openly counter-revolutionary activity of the Social
Democratic leadership, which might discredit it sufficiently to destroy its
influence in its own organization and in the working class as a whole. This was
not an unreasonable expectation, as the Social Democratic Party had been split
on the issue of war aims in 1917; this had led to the formation of the
Independent Socialist Party (U.S.P.D.), as a first indication of the
radicalization of the socialist movement. Until then, organizational fetishism,
with its insistence upon unity and discipline, had been strong enough to prevent
an internal break. Even the Spartacus League, which came to the fore in 1915,
did not attempt to form a new party, but contented itself with the position of a
left opposition, first in the old party and later within the framework of the
Independent Socialists, so as not to lose contact with the organized socialist
workers. Although the 1eaderships of socialist parties were considered to be
beyond repair, this was held not to be true for the rank and file, who might be
won over to the revolution. However, the Independent Socialists themselves
encompassed a right wing, a center, and a left wing, reaching from E. Bernstein,
K. Kautsky, and R. Hilferding to K. Liebknecht, R. Luxemburg, and F. Mehring,
the latter three representing the Spartacus League. As an opposition party to the
social-patriotic Majority Socialists, the U.S.P.D. was seen as the leading
revolutionary organization with the greatest influence upon the radical elements
of the working class. But because of the divisive structure of the party it was
not able to play a consistently revolutionary role and left the determination of
events to the social reformists. Only after these experiences, at the end of
1918, did the Spartacus League, together with some other local radical
groupings, constitute itself as the Communist Party, calling for a soviet
republic.

Just as little as the bourgeoisie and its Social Democratic allies were able
to assess their chances for survival during the first weeks of the revolution,
but could only try to prevent its radicalization through the immediate
organization of all anti-revolutionary forces in a counter-revolution against
the mere possibility of a true socialist revolution, so the revolutionary
minority could not assess the probability of success or failure within a
situation still in flux and capable of going beyond its initial, limited,
political goals. For neither side, since both comprised social minorities
insofar as their conscious goals were concerned, was there a way to weigh its
chances, except by trying to realize its objectives. Only by probing the strength
or weakness of the opponent was it possible to influence events and to gain some
insight into the otherwise unpredictable course of the revolution. But this was
no longer a question of competing political programs on a purely ideological
level, but one of a confrontation of the armed revolution with the armed
counter-revolution – a question of civil war. It was only in retrospect, after the
defeat of the revolutionary minority, that it became clear that the
revolutionary upheavals had been a cause lost in advance.

In organizing the defense of the capitalist system, the social reformists
prepared for and provoked the civil war, all the while calling for its
prevention, in order to arrest the rise of “Bolshevik anarchy” and to assure an
orderly and bloodless transfer from the old to the new government. But civil
war, Rosa Luxemburg wrote,

is only another name for class struggle. The idea of reaching
socialism without class struggle through the Parliament is a laughable petty-
bourgeois illusion. The National Assembly belongs to the bourgeois revolution.
Whoever wants to use it today throws the revolution back to the historical
stage of the bourgeois revolution; he is merely a conscious agent of the
bourgeoisie or an unconscious ideologist of the petty-bourgeoisie. (2)

But though this is true, it did not bother the majority of the socialist
workers, who had shared for so long in this petit bourgeois ideology, and who
had no desire to turn the revolution into civil war now that the war had
actually ended. In distinction to the situation in Russia, where the revolution
was to bring the war to an end, in the Central European nations the war was
liquidated by the bourgeoisie itself and the revolution was a consequence of
this liquidation. There was no longer a war to be turned into civil war. There
was also no peasantry utilizing the breakdown of autocracy for the appropriation
and division of the landed estates, but rather, except perhaps in Hungary, a
capitalistic agriculture with a reactionary peasant population. For the
revolution to succeed it would have to be one made by the industrial
proletariat, set against all other classes in society, and would therefore
require the participation of the working class as a whole. It could not succeed
if carried out only by a minority.

In their revolutionary elan and audacity the minority of German revolutionaries
were, in a sense, even more Bolshevik than the Bolsheviks in their attempts to
set an example to the working class. But although they did not hesitate to react
to the persistent provocations of the counter-revolution, and though they did
initiate revolutionary actions on their own accord, it was not in order to gain
control over the revolution and to install their own dictatorship, but to bring
about the class rule of the workers’ councils. While they did not want to make
the revolution for the proletariat, they thought it possible that the sharpening
of the class struggle would activate always greater masses of workers and draw
them into the fight against the counter-revolutionary forces masquerading as
defenders of democracy. Although their efforts ended in defeat, they had been
inescapable, short of leaving the field entirely uncontested to the
counter-revolution whose main stronghold, at this time, was German Social
Democracy. Ironically, the Marxian aspect of the revolution was defeated in the
name of “Marxism” in its purely ideological social democratic cast.